Davison is returning to the debate:

“That of God” yearns for God, Fox implies in the quote we always use for this phrase. In that epistle, once we have done the inner work of our own transformation in the light of Christ ourselves, then we can answer that of God in others. That of God within us is calling out in the darkness, and the Light answers with the Word.

“That of God”—Again

For decades, I have complained about Friends claiming that “that of God in everyone” is our central tenet…

Through the Flaming Sword

An American teacher taught the young prince he would never be a god. But he just might help heal his country.

Japan Would Make Akihito Emperor, but She Called Him ‘Jimmy’ (Published 2019)

An American teacher taught the young prince he would never be a god. But he just might help…

www.nytimes.com

It’s always fascinating to watch the ebb and flow of my blogging. Quakerranter, my “main” blog has been remarkably quiet. I’m still up to my eyeballs with blogging in general: posting things to QuakerQuaker, giving helpful comments and tips, helping others set up blogs as part of my consulting business. My Tumblr blog and Facebook and Twitter feeds all continue to be relatively active. But most of these is me giving voice to others. For two decades now, I’ve zigzagged between writer and publisher; lately I’ve been focused on the latter.

When I started blogging about Quaker issues seven years ago, I was a low-level clerical employee at an Quaker organization. It was clear I was going nowhere career-wise, which gave me a certain freedom. More importantly, blogs were a nearly invisible medium, read by a self-selected group that also wanted to talk openly and honestly about issues. I started writing about issues in among liberal Friends and about missed outreach opportunities. A lot of what I said was spot on and in hindsight, the archives give me plenty of “told you so” credibility. But where’s the joy in being right about what hasn’t worked?

Things have changed over the years. One is that I’ve resigned myself to those missed opportunities. Lots of Quaker money and humanly activity is going into projects that don’t have God as a center. No amount of ranting is going to dissuade good people from putting their faith into one more staff reorganization, mission rewrite or clever program.It’s a distraction to spend much time worrying about them.

But the biggest change is that my heart is squarely with God. I’m most interested in sharing Jesus’s good news. I’m not a cheerleader for any particular human institution, no matter how noble its intentions. When I talk about the good news, it’s in the context of 350 years of Friends’ understanding of it. But I’m well aware that there’s lots of people in our meetinghouses that don’t understand it this way anymore. And also aware that the seeker wanting to pursue the Quaker way might find it more closely modeled in alternative Christian communities. There are people all over listening for God and I see many attempts at reinventing Quakerism happening among non-Friends.

I know this observation excites some people to indignation, but so be it: I’m trusting God on this one. I’m not sure why He’sgiven us a world why the communities we bring together to worship Him keep getting distracted, but that’s what we’ve got (and it’s what we’ve had for a long time). Every person of faith of every generation has to remember, re-experience and revive the message. That happens in church buildings, on street corners, in living rooms, lunch lines and nowadays on blogs and internet forums.We can’t get too hung up on all the ways the message is getting blocked. And we can’t get hung up by insisting on only one channel of sharing that message. We must share the good news and trust that God will show us how to manifest this in our world: his kingdom come and will be done on earth.

But what would this look like?

When I first started blogging there weren’t a lot of Quaker blogs and I spent a lot more time reading other religious blogs. This was back before the emergent church movement became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zondervan and wasn’t dominated by hype artists (sorry, a lot of big names set off my slime-o-meter these days). There are still great bloggers out there talking about faith and readers wanting to engage in this discussion. I’ve been intrigued by the historical example of Thomas Clarkson, the Anglican who wrote about Friends from a non-Quaker perspective using non-Quaker language. And sometimes I geek out and explain some Quaker point on a Quaker blog and get thanked by the author, who often is an experienced Friend who had never been presented with a classic Quaker explanation on the point in question. My tracking log shows seekers continue to be fascinated and drawn to us for our traditional testimonies, especially plainness.

I’ve put together topic lists and plans before but it’s a bit of work, maybe too much to put on top of what I do with QuakerQuaker (plus work, plus family). There’s also questions about where to blog and whether to simplify my blogging life a bit by combining some of my blogs but that’s more logistics rather than vision.

Interesting stuff I’m reading that’s making me think about this:

• Mission Credibility by Anglican Plain
• The New Landscape of the Religion Blogosphere on the Immanent Frame, “principally written” by Nathan Schneider, who’s one of the contributors at Killing the Buddha.
• LizOpp’s I Blog Because I Dive.

The Christian Peacemaker Teams issued an elegant and heartfelt statement beginning “In grief we tremble before God who wraps us with compassion.” Fox knew the risk he was taking going to Iraq unarmed. But he also knew that this witness  would mean more to the Iraqi people than a hundred tanks. He knew the war we Friends wage is the Lamb’s War, a war won not through strength but through meekness, our only weapon our humilty before God and our love of neighbor. My prayers are with his family and friends, may Christ’s comfort continue to hold them through these aching times.
More history and resources on my “Christian Peacemaker Team Watch”:http://www.quakerquaker.org/christian_peacemaker_teams/

Martin! I finally got around to checking out your website [after hearing about it at the youth consultation], and it is one of the most beautiful things I have seen in a very long time! Many of the things you have written especially speak to my condition at the Chapel Hill Monthly Meeting, which could be a poster child for “the only thing i believe in is peace [+ that Bush is bad]” brand of Quakerism. While I cannot honestly say I have faith in Jesus as the son of God who died on the cross for our sins at this point in my spiritual developement, I do feel myself moving very strongly towards what you call conservative liberal Quakerism. It’s mostly an issue of making the leap of faith. I feel very strongly that modern Friends need to go back to George Fox and the other old Friends for some context and guidance. Even though I am only 19, I consider myself one of those 20somethings who are looking for a real religion, not just some watered down semi-spiritual community. [I’m not actually a member of my MM. but I feel like I am. I feel like one of the most Quaker non-official-Quakers around]
I apologize in advance for my ranting.
Your writing helped me think critically about the youth consultation, although I already had some problems with it. Especially the lack of God –and just about no Christ [lots of “the Spirit”] and the lack of talk about why exactly young people are leaving Quakerism. I know you’re not someone who necessarily needs to hear my rants, but I just don’t understand why there’s no communication network set up for Quakers from all over the place to come together and discuss things. the fact that there is no North American Young Adult Friends is just pitiful. I don’t, and I’m sure lots of other disgruntled Friends don’t –feel they have any easily accessible way of venting feelings and beliefs in a place where someone will listen.
For some reason, at the consultation I *did* feel like we were worshiping together, which is something I cannot say for CHFM. I don’t know why.
that consultation left me feeling so incredibly hopeful and depressed about the future of Quakerism-at the same time. reading your blogs only fueled those feelings. living on a university, I am very aware that there are a zillion and a half religious groups that all want me to be one of them. What will I tell my fellow students when they ask me why they should be a Quaker? or even what it means to be a Quaker?
thank you for listening to my rants, again.
blessings, blessings, and blessings, Danny

When I asked Danny if I could repost his email, he also asked that he give this disclaimer: sure you can put it up. although i will have to give myself the disclaimer of having only attended the chfm for a year and a few months, so i don’t want to claim that my experience of that community is necessarily the most fair one that anyone could produce. they are really good people,and the kind of community that some people want and need simply isn’t a very religiously orthodox one. but i think that they could clarify what they believe as a community.

Went to the opening of “Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s”:http://www.pym.org annual sessions yesterday. It’s hard to get too excited about it. It was the same people talking about the same issues. I really like and respect so many in the yearly meeting: the current clerk is always friendly and open to the spirit and the general secretary talks about all the right issues. But try as I might, I can never imagine this group on _fire._ It’s always so focused on itself, its personalities, its structures. Over 99% of the yearly meeting members weren’t there, are never there. The great people still to be gathered aren’t inside that meetinghouse wall.
For a yearly meeting hoping that “community”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000264.php might be the glue that holds it together, I felt pretty out of place. There were maybe half-a-dozen people under forty in the room. Two had presentations but not surprisingly they were both the children of prominent parents, young adults whose last names had gotten them to the podium. Both had been sent on trips as PYM representatives; smart money would bet that neither attends a Meeting regularly. It’s genuinely depressing to once again see token young adult children of prominent Friends held up as the future of Quakerism, even if they’re uninvolved, even if they’re only semi-coherent. No one ever seems to notice that the “future” is eternally twenty years old.
March 25 was not only the first day of PYM sessions. On the Catholic calendar, it’s the “Feast of the Annunciation”:http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01542a.htm, the day the angel Gabriel visited a teenage girl of undisguished parents in a dusty corner of the Roman empire to tell her she was to be the mother of God. Two thousand years ago the Word was made flesh and the son of God was conceived in a miracle. I skipped the evening session of PYM to join Julie at Mass. I needed some religion. While Friends don’t mark our calendars we do share the story. When Gabriel told Mary ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” she responded “Let it be done to me according to thy word,” despite knowing her life plans and agendas would be forever altered. Friends testify that “Jesus has come to teach the people himsef.” What would it mean for us to scrap our plans and agendas to follow His?

We are redeemed by the only redeemer Christ Jesus, not with corruptible things, neither is our redemption of man, nor by man, nor according to the will of man, but contrary to man’s will. And so, our unity and fellowship with vain man are lost, and all his evil ways are now turned into enmity; and all his profession is now found to be deceit, and in all his fairest pretences lodgeth cruelty; and the bottom and ground of all his knowledge of God and Christ is found sandy, and cannot endure the tempest.

Interesting ideas, but not ones most liberal Friends would like to tackle. It’s a shame. I wish we would more more actively engage with our tradition and not just selectively edit out a few words which makes Fox sound like a seventeen century Thich Nhat Hanh. I think we can simultaneously wrestle with and challenge our tradition without having to either capitulate to it or abandon it.

After writing the above, I went for a neighborhood walk with baby asleep in the backpack. And I realized I hadn’t explained why it matters to engage. I didn’t quote the sentences about human willfullness to show that I’m more seventeenth century than thee, or to prove I can use the “C” word.
No, I quote it because it’s a rockin’ quote. George Fox is mapping out for us twenty-first century Friends just how we might get out of the predicament of superficial “community” we’ve gotten ourselves into. Everyone from Walmart to Walgreen’s, from Hillary Clinton to Oprah, is trying to sell us on some dream of community complete with a price tag from corporate America. Buy our products, our political party, our lifestyle and we’ll give you the narcotic of consumer targeting. Wear the right right sneaker or drive the right car and you’re part of the in-crowd.

But these communities built on the sand just dissolve in the tide and leave us more stranded than when we started.
We poor humans are looking for ways to transcend the crappiness of our war- and consumer-obsessed world. Quakerism has something to say about that (more than ways to recycle plastic or stage a protest faux-blockade). We’re tossing out the future when we throw away the past, just to live in our TVs. George’s epistle mentions this too:

Let not hard words trouble you, nor fair speeches win you; but dwell in the power of truth, in the mighty God, and have salt in yourselves to savour all words, and to stand against all the wiles of the devil, in the mighty power of God.

(Quotes from Epistle 24, reprinted here.)